Lord, have mercy. In your refining work, be gentle? The soul always fears and resists the fire.
The waters of the Ghost River numb the fingers to touch, here in this valley. In the Winter and early Spring, the forces of gravity and motion defy the physics of freezing. At water temperatures where lakes have long since succumbed to solidity, the river remains in motion. In the shallows, clear as cold, liquid glass. In the deep bends and pools, glacial blue. Purity and opacity conflated in the depths, the color hardly seems possible in the natural world. Where the river cuts its freestone path through the valley, the motion and cold scrubs the rocks clean of any sign of plant life. The same river that brings life to the valley, too pure and cold to sustain it, itself.
Storm clouds traverse the sky overhead, settling in the pathway the valley provides. Thus, the river sustains itself; the river cuts the valley, the valley feeds and forms the river. This, the seemingly effortless orchestration of the millennia, borne out in the immeasurable patience of Creation.
The rocks of the river, worn beautifully soft and smooth to the touch in the discipline of endless submission to the waters which pour over them. The waters patiently, eternally carrying pieces of each away until the fullness of the Creator's intent for them is realized. Will the waters one day wear these stones to nothingness? Only time will tell.
The human heart is like - and unlike - this, it seems to me. In submission to the Creator's gracious, refining love, we too will one day be worn, smaller and smoother, by his purposes. And we will fear that in such surrender we might in fact disappear; we are tempted, in fear, to resist. Tempted to fight to preserve ourselves in all our cragged brokenness. But the human heart is a work of flesh and of Spirit, not stone! Crafted for eternity in God's own image, we need not fear the refining erosion of grace upon the heart. In time, God will make us MORE like ourselves, not less. To actively trust that this is true is the substance and form of faith itself.
From the distance, watching the clouds break upon the seemingly immoveable mountains with sheets of rain, it appears to one a gentle, even tickling thing. Thin veils of water, casting themselves in slow motion against the unfeeling rock. Small birds dance in the updrafts of the valley, safely at a distance of miles from the unfolding weather, at eye level with me here on the cliff's edge, yet hundreds of feet off the ground. One knows that to stand on those mountains in the midst of the collapsing clouds is not the same, gentle experience produced by observing the proceedings from afar. In the midst, there is cold, and wet; discomfort and perhaps even danger. And the immoveable mountains themselves must know: with every drop of rain that falls upon them, some small piece of themselves is lost forever to the valley and river below.
What is it that the Spirit of God would seek to take away from me, by the patient eroding of grace? What refining fires would God stoke and sustain beneath me through the persistent friction of marriage and ministry if I would indeed submit to that refining work?
A passing burst of rainfall and the forest around the lodge explodes, now, with the scent of evergreen. The wet trees warming again in the re-emerging sunshine.
Erosion is, typically, a slow and patient work. Rocks in a riverbed worn smooth by thousands of years and millions of gallons of overrunning water. But sometimes, in a storm of particular violence or longevity, floodwaters may exert their will over and against a given landscape in an instant. Trees unearthed and moved miles downstream, riverbanks surrendering tons of sodden earth to the force of the groundswell and carried off to the next bend or stillwater.
This is the sensation of my heart, in this moment. The sudden, sucking collapse of previously well-defined riverbanks, lost and gone to the floodwaters. The edges of my heart feel uncomfortably soft, vulnerable to further loss. Could this, too, be grace? Is it acceptable, commendable even, to see one's strength lost when the infiltrating and weakening agent is... love?
The answer to this question is not as straightforward, for me, as it perhaps ought to be. When hardness has been your heart's crutch and defense against the risk and pain of vulnerability for so many years, to suddenly find oneself without it constitutes something of a personal crisis.
Is it possible for a softened heart to survive the daily violence of vocational, pastoral ministry for any length of time? To consider the converse, is it possible for a hardened, guarded heart to truly know the love (and therefore the power) of God, upon which of course any genuine work of ministry depends? In the furthermost depths of my soul there is a yearning that persists for a touch of tactile, supernatural immanence; to experience the nearness of the Lord in conspicuous POWER. But I now wonder: if the posture of my heart has long been such that it - and I - have been effectively unable to receive love well - of spouse, friends, and others - is it possible that I have made myself essentially immune to receiving the EFFECTIVE love of God, as well? And if the impenetrable hardness of my heart has left the freely outpoured love of God to cascade off and around me, but not infiltrate and saturate my very soul, is it any wonder that power and immanence seem lacking?
Lord, forgive me.
Lord, have mercy.
Come, Lord Jesus.